


Gardening Malice for Murderers

by laudanum_and_wine



Category: Beetlejuice (1988), Beetlejuice (TV 1989), Beetlejuice - All Media Types, Beetlejuice - Perfect/Brown & King
Genre: A little dishointed, Bad BDSM Etiquette, Beej isn't well guys, Blood and Injury, Blood and Torture, Body Worship, Dubious Consent, Explicit Sexual Content, Extremely Dubious Consent, F/M, Go listen to Penny is Poison, Gratuitous Violence, Lydia isn't either, Minor Character Death, Really Bad BDSM Etiquette should be on all my fics, That's the fandom really, They're getting less healthy the more i write, Torture as Foreplay, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-20
Updated: 2020-03-17
Packaged: 2021-02-28 07:01:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 7
Words: 10,885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22809811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laudanum_and_wine/pseuds/laudanum_and_wine
Summary: Strange scenes from a universe that doesn't exist, very out of chronological order.Evil!Lydia definitely does NOT have Betelgeuse's best interests at heart, but there's no reason she should: he's dead after all. Also, he doesn't care.
Relationships: Beetlejuice/Lydia Deetz
Comments: 20
Kudos: 40





	1. Chapter 1

His fingers were burning where they touched her hip under the sheet, needles of pain stabbing into each and every pad, too painful to register if it was hot or cold or electric, exactly like he remembered it. 

Lydia rolled her body over, turning into his touch, propped up on her elbows blinking down at him with bored eyes.

"Hello," her voice was thick with sleep.

"Hey," he managed the word with no small amount of effort. Felt his body, image of a body, memory of a body, shake where he knelt beside her bed, where he'd been kneeling for hours before he'd found the courage to slip his hand under her bedding. 

"Can't sleep?" She asked, like she didn't know, like he hadn't explained it a thousand thousand thousand times. Like she hadn't woken to his eyes a hundred nights, a thousand mornings, waiting for her to join him always always always. 

"Nah."

She sighed, and sat up straighter now, stretching long arms above her head. Lights from the city night flashed between the blinds, making her skin glow, making her wet eyes reflect everything but him. His fingers were on her thigh and he could barely focus through the pain.

"God you're gorgeous." He didn't really think he'd spoken until she leaned down, bending double and pulling him up by the collar to be kissed gently. She was the surface of a star on his tongue.

"Did you want something?" she asked, and he nodded quickly.

"You."

She tipped her head to one side, considering. Her fingers should have carved black lines in his clothing, cut through flesh like a hot knife, should have been razor sharp.

"Were you able to run those errands for me?" She was peeling back blankets, not an invitation but a preview.

"Yep, they're done. Gone. Deadskie," he licked his lips like that did anything at all, watching the thigh he was caressing slowly be revealed in the half light.

"Oh, Betel…" She always said his name slow, making him wait for the end, making him wonder if it was an endearment or dismissal.

"Also exorcised, just in case," he added with a smile.

She pulled him into bed then pulled off his clothes and ran her hands along his skin like wildfire consuming him. He shuddered and tried to just keep up, searing his tongue on her neck, his chest where her breast pressed against him, until she was wrapped around him in white hot pain, until he was bucking under her, rolling their hips together, inhaling the scalding air from her lungs.

"Come for me," he pleaded, and she did, supernova and crashing wave and planetary collision and more than a little death, a gasping black heat-death of the universe.

He didn't remember what an orgasm really felt like, but he thought it couldn't have ever been this good alive because this wasn't something you'd survive. She was caressing his face, and even without nerves it was acid on his cheek, corrosive, pitting, liquefying everything he was as she climbed out of his lap and pulled him down into the blankets with her. 

"Come to sleep, Betel," she sighed in his ear and he nodded. 

He lay there, eyes closed, concentrating on pretending to breathe convincingly, her leg thrown over him, her hand limp on his chest, burning and aching and waiting for the moment when she blazed too bright and he would just sublimate into nothing. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> List guys, listen. Listen. I love a good unhealthy relationship. Just, unf, unsustainable bad ideas that end in DEATH? OH YEAH. Gormenghast this shit up.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Betelgeuse comes back from a job and Lydia is bad at expressing complex emotions.

He'd crawled into her bed this time, she'd woken up shivering from his skin and would have been furious if she hadn't already woken twice that night overheated and wanting. She actually was furious, damn it: she hadn't seen him in two months and here he was now, lying in her bed, hands on her skin, lips on her throat, and okay, fury was fighting to keep its footing in her chest.

Long fingers traced curves and loops on her thighs, just suggesting she part them, just advising she could, if she wanted, and she wanted like fire.

Her hands pulled and pushed, and kept him at a distance. She was all indecision until he spoke.

"Missed you, need you, want you," and the words were a mudslide, want and desperation. She could taste his sweat in those words, could see through the last two months of him staying away, comparing every scream of terror to hers, every spray of blood pale compared to a drop from her.

"Can I tie you up?" He asked, and his hand shook as he pulled her shirt off. She just nodded mutely, letting desire win out for now.

And here she was, an hour later, still tangled in her four poster bed.She was pleading and panting and begging and he was just smiling down at her like he didn't care at all.

Her legs were sore from kneeling with them spread, her arms ached from being tied above her with scale-smooth coils of him. Every inch of her was wrapped up in him, extra hands and coils of snake and teeth, but he was somehow detached. Watching himself take her apart with half lidded eyes, unengaged. 

She was close, felt her voice break when she called out to him, but his expression didn't even waiver.

She knew she had the ultimate safe word, and short of her using it, short of the nuclear option, he didn't need to care or even to turn on his empathy. If he had any.

Lydia savored that thought, uncharitable and angry, and for just a moment wondered if she would use that option.

But no, she had a little request for him this week, and needed him in whatever passed for the most favorable mood he had.

She glared, and the fingers on her clit sped up. Her eyes fluttered as she felt something an awful lot like a tongue slide into her heat, fucking her with loose languid pulses. He was still standing, leaning over her, hands in pockets, eyes glazed with something cold. Hate, or possession, or desire, which drove her very close to the edge. 

"Beet, ah, ah-!" She hadn't been trying for his name, but he must have sensed that she was close because the motions of his disembodied hands and tongue slowed.

"Lyds, doll, sugar, babe," he purred as he stepped closer and knelt down in front of her, looking at the erotic sculpture he'd made her."Did you need a break?"

Betelgeuse licked his lips with a too-long tongue while he waited for her reply. This was the fourth time he'd stopped her from enjoying what was going to probably be a bone breaking intense orgasm, and it seemed that he was just as amused and pleased now as he'd been the first time.

"Please, Beej, please god," she panted, trying to writhe her way onto the tongue between her legs. She could feel him smile as the tongue slipped back, now just teasing her entrance. 

"You can call me god anytime, babes," he stood, the bulge in his pants now almost level with her face. She strained against her restraints, trying to get closer.

"Please god, please I'll do anything, please please please my god," she was squirming down, unable to descend further thanks to the restraints pulling her arms upward. "I need it, please fuck me!"

She watched him unfasten his pants and stroke himself, didn't even notice she'd wet her lips, parted them, was panting. 

His hand was in her hair, everything loosening just the right amount to let her lean forward and even slip a hand free to grip his thigh as he fucked her mouth. His pace was fast, and she was fighting down the desire to gag, her fingers biting into his thigh hard enough to leave marks if he'd had the decency to bother bruising. Her overworked muscles clenched, and whatever was fucking her cunt was matching their pace, hard and savage, and not what she'd expected. 

Lydia was angry again, mad he'd been gone so long, mad he hadn't checked in, mad that she'd just let him into her bed without making him grovel. She bucked and writhed, but he just moaned her name, low, from all around the room, a chorus of worship. She wanted him to stop, she wanted to punch him square in the face, but with her mouth occupied her option for a safe word was gone.

That thought ripped through her, a torn hole into some black chasm of her psyche, and she felt her muscles relax without her volition. He could keep her there all night, and she couldn't get free. He could fuck her face until he came, until she was sobbing and swallowing and choking. He could fuck her to death, and probably keep going, forever, her suspended like a doll for him until the sun burned out and even then.

"You like that?" He asked, as though he knew, as though he'd just realized the same thing she had. He could hold her and worship her and kill her in a loop forever.

Her climax rolled over her, waves of unexpected light and heat, and she barely tasted him as she swallowed his come greedily. It was an eternity before he slid out of her mouth, sh was all loose untied muscles with his hands, a million hands petting and caressing and sliding her back onto the bed and out from under the black ocean.

He had wrapped them up in blankets and pillows, woven curtains out of thin air to shut them in the canopied bed, layered her in the darkness of underground. His face was pressed into her neck, stubble scratching the skin of her throat, and he was whispering quiet things about missing her and loving her and killing for her.

"I'm still mad at you," she whispered back, and he had the audacity to laugh like she wasn't going to get even with him later. For now, though, she trailed fingers along his ribs and felt him shudder and fell asleep to the dim glow of his unblinking eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well that happened!
> 
> Please crit/comment/correct. Please, please god: comment.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Character building and some violence.

The pull came when he was still in the waiting room, and he was damn grateful to get out of the stuffy nowhere, almost didn't care who was calling. So when he arrived in a darkened house that was both familiar and strange he was momentarily disoriented but glad it was Earth. 

I mean, he was standing in a pretty tacky livingroom, on a wood floor covered in just a little more bodily fluids than the two corpses below him could have managed.

"Listen, normally I do the exterminating? Did a memo get missed somewhere?" He looked around the room, and noted the familiar sculptures finally, surrounded by floral wallpaper. Shit, how long had he been waiting? 

Footsteps and raised voices issued from upstairs, and his possible-employer finally decided to make herself known.

"It's been a rough day," she was walking down the stairwell, followed by a pair of sprinting ghosts hot on her heels, and the Maitlands both had their terrified expressions locked on him. Before Barbara could open her mouth he clapped and the two specters were gone.

"Lydia," he smiled when he said her name. The body at his feet made a gurgling noise and he stepped back.

Lydia walked the last few steps to the stranger's body and sat beside him on the ground. The man tried to claw away with one hand. Betelgeuse's one-time fiancee glanced around for a moment, then found the bloody kitchen knife she'd apparently been looking for, and casually gripped it to stab into the bleeding man's chest a half dozen times.

"Well that was disturbingly sexy," he joked, but she didn't rise to the bait. She just watched the dying man spit blood then stop moving, before her body finally relaxed. He watched her father her thoughts and bury the knife one last time in the dead man, "You good there, sweetness?"

"I don't want to be a civil servant," she said with wet cheeks and hard eyes. His joint demeanor dropped. Those words meant so many things to him, and he knelt in front of her in confusion. He'd been gone a few days to his perspective, and she'd grown up from a suicidal goth teen to a suicidal goth woman. For once the time dilation effect of death wasn't working against him.

"Okay…"

"But I won't stay here either."

He looked around the room, at the blood staining the floorboards and the woman who'd apparently caused it. He couldn't smell things very well anymore, but he remembered the salty iodine scent of carnage and death pretty clearly. 

"And what do you expect from me? A hug?"

"Kill me," she wasn't asking.

"No," and he smiled, happy to get to deny her anything she wanted. 

She sighed like he was a mild and not unexpected annoyance, then pulled the knife from its grisly sheath and was holding it to her wrist. Her hands jerked in a sharp sawing twist, but the knife was gone. She looked up to glare at him, and realized that along with the knife he'd banished the blood, the bodies, all of it. If she went upstairs the bodies of Delia and Charles Deetz would no longer be gently laid on the bed they had shared, but he didn't want to mention them yet. He wanted to hear that from her, why his little parlor trick had dumped four corpses instead of the two he'd anticipated. 

"What happened?" He shifted to sit cross-legged before her and fish cigarettes from his suit pocket.

"I don't know exactly," she watched him light up and was silent for a long time. Finally with much eye rolling he handed her the cigarette and lit another for himself. After a long drag she leaned back on her free hand and continued, "They must have thought it was just Charles and Delia, that I wasn't home. I was supposed to be at school. I don't know who they are- were. I think Delia had met one of them, I remember him at an art thing? When they came in, there was this book, they were reciting something. Barb and Adam tried to stop them, but they were fading like the book… Anyway, all they managed was to throw some things around. Someone must have had a knife. Delia bled out. Dad wasn't hurt, I think his heart-. Barb screamed like a banshee, two guys down here clutching their heads and my parents… The men were stunned, so I grabbed the knife, right out of Delia, and-"

She was definitely in shock, which was useful right now. Honestly he didn't care what had happened, all that mattered was everyone was dead, and it seemed she wanted to be too.

"And now the house will be haunted by all four parents," he said without real malice. "And you'll go get read a riot act or go to a psych ward despite it being self defense, because you enjoyed it too much, and you'd rather not have that so you call someone who should want you dead in hopes they'd clean up for you," He stubbed his cigarette out carelessly on the wood floor.

"There's nowhere else to go."

Barbara and Adam chose this moment to come bursting back through a doorway ripped into the wall shouting his name. He hissed and waved a hand and they were gone again, like it had never happened. 

"I'm guessing Mister and Misus Suburbia want you to live, for your parents sake, blah blah blah?" He gestured to where the wraiths had just been.

"I can't do that."

"Yeah, you can. Christ," Betelgeuse stood, dusted off his suit like he'd be able to tell the difference, and offered her a hand. "Not often I do favors, so you're gonna owe me."

"I don't want to owe you shit," but she took his hand.

"Whatever, the first twenty four hours are a freebie. Consider it an early wedding present to my darling bride."

"I'm not marrying you," she pulled her hand back whip-fast.

"I've got a lifetime to convince ya, and I'm pretty convincing," he walked to the wall where the Maitland's ragged doorway still spilled green light into the livingroom. He shut the door, rea held for the other side, then reopened it onto blackness. "Want to sleep it off and talk in the morning?"

She stood in the middle of her blood-free house and blinked at the shattered art and pottery. The Maitlands didn't charge in to scream and judge and change her mind, thank fuck, so after a minute she followed him to the black doorway. She should have been outraged, terrified, demanding oaths that he'd keep his hands to himself, let her go, bring the Dorky Duo back from wherever he'd sent them. Instead she just nodded and he led her into the dark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoopsie, I killed the Deetz's. At least I didn't exorcise the Maitlands (yet).
> 
> Did I mention this one had no plan? We're totally off the rails on this one. Utterly in nowhere. Even the smut may be dark. Beware.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A conversation about the future, in which Betelgeuse is a possessive piece of shit and Lydia was going to kill a lady but gets beaten to the punch.

It was all a stupidly dangerous game, and she knew it and played anyway. Every day, every job, every little present he brought her was a day closer to inevitable doom at one set of hands or another. She already knew which of the two fates she'd prefer, but a lingering indecision kept her from committing.

"Oh darling," his voice called out from her front room, and Lydia paused in the hall. She slipped the book shed been reading closed, and slid it back into the shelf she'd been standing beside. 

"Betel?" She called out in her best imitation of worried-and-frightened. It was not convincing. 

"Would you be a dear and join me out here?"

Now she was actually frightened, his voice was terrifyingly calm, which she'd never heard outside of sex. She didn't quite understand how the jig was up, but she was sure it was and that she was fucked. Hopefully in the more literal than metaphorical sense. 

There was a woman bleeding on her carpet, and Betelgeuse was standing over her holding what looked like a ball of yarn. She knew exactly what he'd discovered and was almost relieved it was just this, just a little secret he'd stomped into like the giant buffoon he could be. She tried not to look relieved. 

"What's that?" She pointed at the yarn.

"You are a better liar than that, sweet cheeks," he mimed dropping the ball and she jumped forward. He smirked, and kicked the woman on the carpet who whimpered. "She spilled the beans, dear. What the hell are you doing messing with Wyrd?" 

She chewed on her lip and let out a deep breath.

"You weren't supposed to bring her with, damnit. How hard would it have been to steal the damn box and just leave?"

"Not hard, which is why I got suspicious as fuck darlin," he juggled the ball between his hands, and the woman on the carpet bleed and retched and shook.

"Betel! Just hand it over, you don't have to like it-"

"Nope!" He popped the P in his word and pulled out a long loop of thread from the ball, unwinding it until a bow was visible where the thread changed from one material to another, cotton and hemp tied in a firm knot. The woman was convulsing. "Look at her Lyds! She may have bought life, but look at how easy it is to unwind! This is too stupid and dangerous to trust." 

Lydia danced around the woman on the floor, trying to stop him as he pulled handful after handful of thread loose.

"Stop, hey, STOP! She's dying!"

"Don't be cute, you using her Wyrd would'a killed her anyway. You never meant to let her live. This could be you, getting unspooled on a stranger's carpet!"

"That wasn't going to happen!"

"Why, because you so much of a better witch than this one?" He kicked the woman who was too far gone to notice. 

"Because I have you!"

"And when you don't!?" 

They both froze, glaring daggers. He pointedly dropped what was left of the ball, and she watched as it unspooled on the rug, rolling until the last inch laid flat. A tiny spark flicked from the end of the rough rolled-bark cord and burned bright before smoldering out on the carpet. The woman on the rug was totally still for a beat, then her flesh rotted and dissolved and left nothing but a dusty patch on the carpet. 

"I won't let that be you," he growled.

"It's not your decision, it's mine."

"You seem to be working under the false assumption that I'm letting you make decisions," he took one step and was towering over her, hand gripping her jaw, growling into her face. "You're mine, and if I say no you fuckin listen. Understand?"

He kissed her, and it was all aggression and spite, and as he pulled away she bit his lip viciously. He just smiled.

"Find a better solution, babe. Something more bullet proof. I might not always be here, to protect ya," His hand had gone soft on her cheek.

She stared up, still tasting his kiss, and considered him. His thumb caressed a line along her neck. She couldn't contain her confusion.

"Why would you care?"

He shook his head and stepped back, turned away from her, walked a few steps away like he was going to leave via the front door. Her eyes bored into his shoulders as he straightened his jacket.

"If you want immortality, find a more reliable source," his flexed a wrist. "I'll be back tomorrow night."

And with a snap, he was gone. She spooled up the now useless thread and dumped it into the kitchen trash can.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Haha, what, a story and plot and all this in two chapters?!? Kill me.
> 
> Also, this is FUN, I LIKE THIS. No one's healthy, everyone is homicidal, and the sex is probably mind blowingly dangerous!


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Betelgeuse is starting to figure out that marriage is a two way street and he hates it.

It was summer and the past twenty four hours had been sweltering, he'd felt it even incorporeal as he was. Betelgeuse had spent the whole night watching some poor teenager she'd sicked him on, plotting and planning and starting to feel less bad about this kids impending demise in light of their awful taste in music. He could listen to pretty much anything, but after the fifth repetition of any Broadway album he was gonna get a little twitchy.

He'd come back around dawn, when the kid had wrapped up whatever witch-in-training spell they'd been casting and passed out. And of course he'd come back to find more of the same from Lydia: candles still smoking in a ring, dead bird nailed to the floor, and her in bed, the curtains she'd hung from the four-poster frame blacking out the impending glow of dawn.

He phased through the blackout curtains and into her soft pseudo-tomb silently, just to be nosey. She was just rolling over when he looked, splayed out naked over the sheets, tossing from the warmth. The night had never gotten cool, but it looked like she'd embraced heat over light and decided the insulation of the closed off bed was preferable to the sunlight fast approaching. She slid across the cotton sheet, turning restlessly, legs long and lickable. He floated up until he was lying on the ceiling of her little bower, watching her sweat.

A better man might have announced his presence, might have used his abilities to cool the room with ghostly chill, might even have offered to hold her in frigid arms. Alternately, a better man probably wouldn't have married a twenty one year old the day after her parents had died then fucked her through her tears, all while she wore the red wedding dress he'd terrorized her with eight years prior.

And damn, that memory had him all hot and bothered too, just like poor Lydia who sweated and stared blankly into the dark hangings of her bed before him. He was just considered joining her when he watched one of her hands snake south, to brush fingertips gently across her breasts then belly then pubic mound.

"Betelgeuse…" she said, quietly, and he felt the tug, almost thought she'd noticed him before he realized she never said his full name to his face.

Her legs shifted, spreading just enough for her to hold open her folds with one hand and stroke her clit with the other.

She said his name, his mind finally caught up. Sure, she'd said his name during sex, during sex with him there, in the room, but this was her alone. This was her thinking of him, the husband who she fought and fucked and claimed to loathe, who she used and ignored and even banished once in a while. Who she'd tried to exorcise, and to kill. She wanted him. His ego fought a hefty dose of disbelief. 

Her actions weren't performative, which somehow made it so much better for him to watch. She was nearly silent, only making the occasional gasp, chewing her lip. At some point he realized he'd drifted downward, getting closer to her but still secure in his invisibility both in this form and in the darkness. Her panting blew through him like this, gusty and wiping his mind clean. He watched her face while letting the rhythmic breath wash over him, waves of heat smelling like her, sour wine and spices and the endless salty ocean she contained.

Again his mind piped up that he'd felt this before, one or two calls from her without a full summons. He'd always assumed she'd changed her mind mid-summoning, or was cursing his name. Had she been, had it always been..?

She was breathing unevenly, and whispered his name when she came. He felt the tug of her call again, and he almost kissed her, all soft and gentle hands on her face, wanting to ease her through the shaking of her orgasm.

Eyes wide he rocketed back out of the enclosed bed and clear through the far wall of the room, hovering five stories above traffic, sun hitting the west-facing windows of her apartment and making them shimmer. He wasn't even horny after all that, he just wanted to hold her, which was just-

Horrifying.

They'd only been married a few months, but she was his. Sure, he'd agreed to stalk a few newbie-witches for her to slaughter, called his work a late wedding present to her. It's not like her dabbling in the occult didn't benefit him, her strength and lifespan determined how long he had the slew of half-human perks he'd gained in their marriage. She was his, not the other way around, he absolutely was not doing her any favors.

His name was spoken a third time, and he felt the nearly overwhelming pull to be by her side hit him, all torn nerve fibers and g-force and nausea. 

With teeth bared against the feeling he stayed where he was, just a dozen feet away and a million miles as far as she knew, waiting until the tug on his heart passed. This is what their marriage had bought him, the choice to come or go at will, and so he was going to use that choice now to be anywhere but here, because he was not going to humor her expectations, cater to her whims.

He snapped, took himself anywhere but there, and found himself in the old tomb, found himself standing on the packed dirt floor of a room in the Nowhere. He turned around, and sure enough, there was the torn red wedding dress from the last time he'd been here, there was the wine she'd drunk straight from the bottle, there was the ashtray full of cigarette butts they'd filled over the course of two days.

He sat on the bed and rubbed the lace of the dress between his fingers, wondering if Lydia would call him again after he didn't show.

She didn't. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was supposed to be some kinky voyeuristic bullshit and instead both Betelgeuse and me caught The Feels and it turned into some unexpected character development for the dumb shmuck.
> 
> Comments/crits/corrections are my light and life!


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which our murderers get married.

"Hey, listen, babes: I'm not normally one to object to bad ideas, but I feel like for the sake of our marriage I should ask, are ya sure?"

"That's stupid: if I say no now, there is no marriage," Lydia (his Lydia: tiny, gullible, Poe's-Daughter) was sitting in his spare bedroom, sleeping on filthy sheets, eating the cold Chinese food he'd provided like she wasn't even concerned it was poisoned. She probably wasn't, if anything she probably hoped it had been poisoned. He was beginning to notice a weird combination of nausea and excitement in his gut.

"Oh, sweetheart, you're gonna marry me. I'm not worried about that. I just want our marriage to start on the right foot, so ta speak." 

She set down the paper box and glared at him, and he had the thought that she was the first woman in a very long time whose glare made him more excited than concerned, which made him smile. 

"You have something I want," she didn't even cringe at his leer-and-snicker routine. "Marrying you gets me time and power."

"And that gets you revenge on whomever arranged the wholesale slaughter of your folks," he might have been more gentle on the topic, but her mercenary tone was weirdly infuriating. "And those are great reasons to marry me: you want revenge, I'm your man! I'm just sayin' you could think on this some."

He thought her stillness rivaled his own, like she was the one without a pulse.

"Cold feet?" She didn't even waiver in her glare, no humor at all.

He lips curled in a silent snarl at the insinuation that he was being a coward. I mean, he may have been, that was a valid argument based on his continued existence being more important to him than pride, but she wasn't supposed to say shit about it! 

"Great, let's get hitched!" He stood, clapped his hands once, and she was suddenly swimming in red lace again. The dress may have been just a little racier than last time, but could he be blamed for wanting to show off his smokin hot bride-to-be? He tapped his lips for a moment, pretending to think, "Right! We need witnesses."

She stood from the bed and raised her eyebrows expectantly. Damn, tough audience: he'd sorta been hoping the memory of her parents at their last wedding would send her into hysterics. She was just looking around the shitty rundown room with a bored gaze.

"Gotta be breathers: know where we can find any?"

"Earth..?"

Really really tough audience. 

"Fuck it then: to City Hall!" He took her arm brusquely, surprised she let him without flinching, and grinned at her before juicing them to a new location.

"Are we in a broom closet?"

"What, you'd rather I drop us on the front steps? Where anyone could see ya arriving outta nowhere, with your dashing fiancee on yer arm?" As he spoke he'd wrapped an arm around her, copping a quick feel that he'd planned on justifying as happening ever so accidentally when he reached for the door behind her.

He opened the door without having to justify himself, surprised to find he hadn't been slapped or kneed in the balls, and ushered her out into the hallway. His smiles were quickly fading as the day progressed. 

"Where are we?"

"A court house," he said like that was obvious.

"Okay, what city?"

"Donnow, who cares?"

"Why aren't we doing this anywhere with a wall, with the same priest from last time?"

"Sorta called in my only favor on that one," he grimaced and led her along the hall to a double door. "This one good? Sure, this one's fine."

He kicked open the door and she blinked around at a courtroom full of staff preparing for something. Half a dozen people were scattered about the room, a judge wandering past his seat, a stenographer wide eyed, a security guard holding a banana at them.

"Freeze!" Betelgeuse shouted with a grin, and sure enough everyone was perfectly still. "Yer holiness, we need to get hitched. She's in a rush, we're already dolled up, you're not too busy right? Great!"

She didn't even hesitate as he tugged her along to stand before the judge. There was a moment of dead silence before Betelgeuse waved his hand in an impatient gesture and the judges mouth opened.

"Dearly Belov-" the man began in a deep tone.

"Quick version."

"Do you take this woman to be your wife?"

"Had a LOT of time to think about this one, and yes sir I do!"

"And do you take this man-"

"Yes."

Betelgeuse glanced at his bride from the corner of one eye, surprised by her calm certitude in the face of, well, him.

"I now pronounce you husband and wife," the judge's jaw clacked on the last word, and though his eyes rolled back the robed figure stayed standing.

Lydia turned towards her husband, and was even leaning into him slightly which just threw him the fuck off somethin' awful. The kiss was briefer than he'd planned, and the wave of magic had hoped would be an overwhelming jolt of pure freedom and rightness was underwhelming: it was just a click, like his ears had finally popped.

"Righto, that's done, let's boogie before these bozos get less zombie and more animated. Where ya want us to go on our honeymoon, darlin?" He was leading her out of the room arm in arm, her hand a little brand where it clutched his coat.

"Hell, but I'm not picky."

He smiled, not a manic grin, not a simpering plea, just an honest-to-God expression of amusement at her being a prickly bitch with a voice like fuckin music. This whole thing was starting to get weird, he needed to get her under control, get back on top of things. Which was a perfect idea.

"My place then," and he was shuffling her through another broom closet and straight into the parlor of his shitty rundown catastrophe of a house. She stepped out of the red high heels he'd put her in, kicking them to the side like she lived here, then proceeded to wander the front room with detached interest. 

"Nice wallpaper," she drug one finger along the wall at hip level as she wandered the halls. "We're in your house, or just a house?"

"Mine," his eyebrows creased together as he followed her, trying to determine if he was going crazy.

"So I married a homeowner, how delightful. Though I suppose I own a home now too…" she'd made it to the kitchen, and punched a push-button lightswitch to illuminate the room. Roaches scattered and she turned to him, "Sorry, I seem to have scared off the contents of your pantry."

He had the thought that she was either still in shock or totally fucked up, and he needed to stop being confused about that and just roll with it. If she wasn't going to express fear or disgust or even the modicum of self preservation he'd been expecting, well. I mean, less fun for him but also less drama. He tried one last time.

"Not really hungry for food," he leered. "Let me show you the master bedroom."

"Sure," and she stood, waiting for him to lead. Jesus.

One flight of stairs later he held the door open for his wife, letting her into his, their, a bedroom. She breezed past in a whisper of clove and vanilla that seemed to be a stronger and more enchanting scent than he'd ever experienced. He kicked the door shut behind them and trailed her into the room, leaning into her personal space to breathe just a little deeper, dizzy with how amazing she smelled. 

"When did you put on perfume?" He asked, distractedly.

"That's a dumb come-on, Betel," she was looking around the room as she spoke.

"No, seriously, you smell amazing."

"Night before last," she turned from the curtain she'd been lifting and looked him in the eyes. "For dinner with my parents, before they were, you know, murdered."

He reached out slowly, still enchanted, and ran his index finger across the column of her throat. He could literally feel her pulse, could feel her body heat like fire.

"Yer the first thing I've been able to really smell in centuries. Think I could get used to this whole half human thing..."

"Half?" 

"Well I was only half ghost to begin with so," he'd crowded into her space, her hair brushing his cheeks as he inhaled deeply. He realized she'd tipped her head back, and he wasn't sure if she was retreating from him or granting him access. He chose not to care, and to ignore the way she shivered or shuddered when his cold lips brushed the skin below her jaw, and the way her hands gripped his lapels either pushing back or at best holding still.

He licked a short stripe against her skin, and that was definitely a shiver and not a shudder, was definitely a pull on his jacket, was definitely arousal and not repulsion. Well, maybe curiosity and a little repulsion, but he'd worked with less.

He smiled knowingly at her, maybe too condescendingly because she glared, then had her hefted up with hands on her ass, lifting her until her legs wrapped around his waist and she clung to him, and he hauled them both the few steps to the bed. She was dropped, skirt tangling both their legs, pulling him down with her, until she was flat on her back, one heel hooked around his thigh, and he could feel her god damned pulse-

She looked up through dark lashes with a hint of emotion, maybe fear or anticipation, could'a been sadness. He immediately had to taste that, kissing her hard, and when her lips parted, maybe to protest or just in shock, he licked his way into her mouth, so hot it felt like a light socket.

"Jesus," he managed to pant into her hair an eternity later. "Does shit always feel this good to breathers? How do you get shit done for fucks sake?"

"You want the full tour?" She asked, voice low. He actually whined in response, one arm supporting his weight as the other pushed up red tulle and lace, bunching her skirt up, grinding against her, until he could feel the heat of her cunt even through the fly of his pants.

"It is our wedding night, after all," he managed to counter. 

Lydia reached up then, finally an active participant, finally something more than clutching silence, and he was thrilled. Until her fingers slid around the back of his neck, skin on dead flesh, and he bucked his hips, being pulled down to her lips again. Her kiss actually, honest to whatever powers-might-be, hurt. But he was used to pain, he was dead, he couldn't be harmed by it or anything anyway, just made to endure and this was so so worth it. Her fingers had, at some point, managed to undo all the buttons on his shirt.

"Betel-" she said, eyes on his chest, and his name from her it still sent a jolt down his spine. He cut her off with his lips, kissing her fiercely until she pulled back, down into the mattress.

"Easy on the name game, doll. I'm no longer subject ta the whims of every idiot with a tongue, but it would still be a mood killer to go anywhere right now. Banish me now even for a sec, and I refuse to be held responsible for whomever I murder outta sheer sexual frustration," he joked, tugging down the top of her dress to free her tits and buy himself time to recover from the sound of even just PART of his name from her.

She smiled, actually smiled, like she was so pleased with herself and the thought of him murdering, and reached down with both hands to, oh Christ she had his pants half off before he knew what to do. He rolled one of her nipples between his teeth while she used one hand to stroke his length.

"Fuck me," her voice was level.

"What?" Wow, super fuckin smooth response. 

"It's our wedding night," she replied, and then his dick was out and she was pulling aside red panties and he was pressed along her, a tease of hot wet heaven with the head of his cock brushing her clit as she rocked against him.

"Uncircumcised, hm?" She rolled her hips.

"Not a big thing in the thirteen hundreds," he inched down and pushed against her entrance, trying not to bruise her skin with too-rough hands.

"That's right, you're from England, aren't you?"

"Yes, correctomundo, I am," he could feel her wetness, sliding along his shaft, watched her hips move as he did.

"Why don't you have a British accent?" He finally glanced at her face and realized she was fucking with him, stalling, and probably totally aware of how completely undone he was by these new almost-lifelike sensations. What an evil fucking tart.

He pushed into her slowly and watched her eyes widen and lips go slack, managing to whisper something filthy in Middle English that he couldn't remember within moments, and maybe she wasn't smiling but her pupils were just a touch too dilated.

He rocked slowly in her, keeping his weight on one arm as his free hand reached down to trace large circles around her clit. Lydia's eyes fluttered shut, she seemed awfully quiet for all the smart-talk she'd tried earlier. Her body was loosening slowly, eyes closed, lips parted. He realized she was probably trying to forget it was him, her monster, who she had legs and arms wrapped around, but the molten heat of her was too much for him to care. He couldn't feel jilted when every touch of her hands and lips and tits and soft gorgeous cunt was like god damned revelation.

He had leaned in to kiss her without conscious thought, soft and gentle, hadn't meant to slow his thrusts, hadn't meant to wait for her lips to part before pressing his tongue to hers, and hadn't meant for the moment to shift from fucking to something else. He realized it a second before she did, the moment before she moaned his name, but just the sound of his name almost made him come then and there, he had to freeze up, pause where he'd gently bitten her teeth, and just think about anything, baseball, Juno, witch trials, for a beat.

And Lydia felt it too, obviously, moments after him when his name was still ringing in her ears. She looked up at him in disbelief for just a heartbeat, her heartbeat, before her expression changed. She smiled, a disgusted viscous little twist to her face, and squirmed under him hard, managing to break away and roll halfway over, even as she spoke.

"Betelgeuse," she managed, and this time he knew exactly what she was doing, this time his name was no accident.

He slapped a hand over her mouth and pinned her to the mattress with his weight. The moment was gone.

"Hey now," he kept both arms wrapped around her, and her bucking was hindered by the yards of dress around her. He hissed at her, almost mad "What did I say about the name, babes?" 

She squirmed and thrashed, until she was face down, arms trapped beneath lace, and she panted. He could feel the wet of her come slicked across her thighs where his dick was once again pressed against her skin.

He loosened his grip, ready to shove his fingers in her god damned mouth if he so much as heard a syllable he didn't like.

"Just fuck me, you bastard," her voice was shakey, and despite her words she struggled against him.

"You want it rough? Fine," with one hand he held her down by the neck, the other brushing aside what cloth had managed to fall between them. With one thrust he was inside her again, this time with far less reverence or patience. "Is that better, wife of mine?" 

Her arms and hands scrabbled in the sheets until she got a good grip, then she was thrusting back against him, swearing and cursing as he slammed into her. He heard a tear, watched the sheet rip under her hand, and slapped her ass hard. She screamed, half rage maybe, but didn't stop meeting his thrusts. 

The fire of her skin was less overwhelming this way, less of a religious experience. She was spread out under him, shaking now, and he pressed her shoulders into the mattress, forcing her to turn her heard to breathe. 

For just a moment he saw the glitter or tears on her eyes, the sticking wetness of glued together lashes, a pinkness to her lips and nose that wasn't from his kiss.

"Don't you dare stop, you bastard," he hadn't even slowed, but she must have known he'd seen. Her eyes didn't open. "Don't stop or I swear to god I will end you."

He laughed, hips snapping into her, fingers biting into her skin. After a few hard thrusts, he released the pressure on her back, grabbing her hand with his and guiding it down to her cunt.

"Come for me, doll face."

She understood, working her clit furiously, head to the side, eyes still shut, and he could feel the clench and flex of her, the occasional brush of her hands when his balls pressed just to against her. She ground her teeth, and he could tell she was close, the thought of watching his pretty breather shatter was so amazing, so fucking hot, his fingers dug in hard on her hips. She came shaking, with a shout, back bowing away from him, ass pressed back, tears finally scattering from her eyelashes like stars. He barely lasted a moment after that, arched over her to bite into her shoulder as he filled her in four hard thrusts. 

He had just enough higher thought to be impressed and pleased that he could actually fill her with come now, half human and with all of the delicious bodily fluid that implied, and flopped bonelessly next to her on the bed.

Something had changed while they were fucking, he realized. He was panting. And she smelled not just amazing, but also like skin, and hair, cheap shampoo, body odor, and her come and his come. She had rolled to the side, facing away from him, and he lifted a lock of her hair. Rolling it between his fingers, he could feel the coarseness, individual strands shifting. 

"Holy fuck."

"What," She replied without rolling over. Her voice did not sound teary, which he supposed was good.

"I think the human shit just really kicked in full force. I can smell everything, I can-" He cut himself off to drag his tongue up the curve of her spine. "Oh yeah, I can taste now, fuck yes!"

Lydia rolled over to face him with a bored expression, but had her eyes always been to bright? So full of shades of honey and wood and-

"Oh my god, let's get coffee," he was bolt upright, fixing his clothing in a heartbeat. She sat up slowly, unamused. 

"Why?"

"I want to know what coffee tastes like now. And beer. And your pussy," he tipped her chin up with a grin. She did not smile back.

"Come on babes, it's the first day of the rest of our lives."

She didn't seem very enthused about that, but she did come downstairs and let him brew what they both agreed was the most rancid coffee that had ever been made.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just really wanted to write some emotionally complex sex, apparently. 
> 
> They are so not healthy for each other, but shockingly Betel is maybe not BAD for Lydia. Though Lydia is bad for Lydia.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A super graphic scene from sometime between marriage and Betelgeuse falling dumb-in-love.   
> Rating and tags went up, because my dudes here be some dark shit, which hopefully you're into!

He hadn't been summoned, but he could tell Lydia had been thinking of him. It felt like a sunburn on his cheeks, her attention, and so he'd dropped into the mortal plane and her house with no warning. The room was warm and candlelit, heady incense clouding the air, almost romantic. The runes on the ground less so.

"I'm sorry, is this an exorcism? Am I interrupting a fucking exorcism?"

Lydia started and scrambled away from him, though she was mindful enough to stay in the circle of salt she'd drawn. Mostly. He watched a stray knife skitter to the side, knocked out of the ring, its glittering blade slicing a line through the loose salt. She didn't seem to notice. 

Next to her hand a book, the knife, a coffee cup, and one of his ties?

"Lyds. Pookie. Are you trying to exorcise me?" His tone was light.

Her face went from frightened to furious like a lightning strike, it was gorgeous. 

"Fuck you, Betel. I'm done being your pet," she snatched up the book beside her and began to read in Latin with a painfully bad accent.

He considered his options quickly and thought, hey fuck it, it'll be entertaining.

He writhed, causing her to pause and look up. Maybe writhing was overselling it. He tried to hit a middle ground, and fell to his knees when she paused, panting, disguising a snap of his fingers with a twitch. The water in her little cup was unprotected now that her circle was broken, so he replaced it with blood, just for the giggles. She didn't notice, went back to her recitation. He gradually increased the drama.

"Wait, wait. Babes! Think about this!" He slowed his writhing and swearing when she paused to listen to him. He panted convincingly, "We can talk this out babes! You want more freedom, I can give you a longer leash-"

That had apparently been the wrong thing to say, she started reading again and he almost felt a tickle under his ribs from whatever she was attempting. He managed to fake some smoking from his ears, doubled over on the floor. Her voice was getting stronger, and he was fighting the giggles.

He thought he heard her say something that was probably supposed to be about "banished for years" but again, bad pronunciation, she ended up saying he was banished from her ass, and that's what finally broke him. He snickered, his contortions now just shaking laughter. 

She stopped reading slowly, the words stuttering and dying in the incense laden air. He sat upright, still chuckling, eyes half closed with mirth. She threw the cup of liquid at his face, gasping when he was splattered with blood rather than water. His laughter died, and he wiped blood from his eyes with a dry smirk.

"I thought that was your drink," he shook blood from his fingertips with a flick.

"It was supposed to be holy water…" She sounded confused. 

He licked his lips, glared at her from through sticky bloody eyelashes, then uncoiled his limbs to launch himself at her. They struggled for a moment, salt scattering like sand around them, her hands so tight her nails broke his skin. Suddenly she had the knife and it was buried in his right thigh and he screamed.

The noise was three voices, overlapping, all rough as earthquakes, with a million more behind them. The room flashed, too full of writhing flesh, coils and ropes pressing in on them, guts and blood and gore and teeth, she couldn't breathe, her chest wouldn't expand. Her eyes blinked away red tears and it was just the two of them again.

"Fucking DAMNIT, Lydia!" He ripped the blade from his thigh, blood dripping up in slow trails to pool on the ceiling. He jammed the knife into the floorboards with a resonating thunk, and her eyes darted between the blood on her roof, his toothy snarl, and the hilt of the knife pressed flush to the wood floor.

She wasn't really afraid, she thought. He couldn't kill her because he couldn't afford to. Once upon a time he might have maimed her, broken her until she was an easier doll to keep on the shelf, but she knew he loved her now and that was her protection. He was definitely going to hurt her, though, and she wasn't thrilled at that.

She swallowed hard and felt her eyes prickle with tears, and was furious at herself for the reaction. He wanted her to run, wanted her to scream and beg, wanted her fear. He wanted to punish her now, wanted her afraid, and if she didn't give him what he wanted he'd only make it worse for her. 

She was very good at pretending to be afraid, so good she wasn't sure when it was pretend anymore. 

The knife wrenched free of the wood with a shriek, then he was smearing blood on her floor as he scrambled to her with inhuman speed, pinning her down with one arm pressed to her throat. 

"Oh Lydia, oh Lydia, oh have you seen Lydia…" the song was so gentle from his lips, so soft. She relaxed a fraction under his weight, for a heartbeat thought maybe it wouldn't be so bad, then his arm was pressing down, just barely cutting off airflow, and she convulsed under him without meaning to. 

That was what he wanted, she thought, give him whatever he wants now and use it against him later. She let her panic take forefront and scratched at his arm for freedom, thrashing her legs.

"Betelge-" She barely had his name out once before his tie was stuffed in her mouth, the one from the ground, from the exorcism she'd been fairly sure wouldn't work to begin with, and its fabric looped around her head to keep it in place.

He grinned down at her and lessened the weight on her throat before whispering, "Stop squirming, little darling. You practically asked for this."

Lydia thanked whatever beings were watching for her hardwood floors as he stood and dragged her by the hair toward the bed. She expected to be hauled up onto it, was readying a right hook, when he simply grabbed her wrists with one hand and pulled off the tie he'd been wearing with the other. He had her arms lashed to the post of the bed in seconds.

He stepped back then, let her kick and struggle in vain until the fight went out of her some time later. Her everything hurt. She sat, legs akimbo, arms held tightly above her head, drooling onto a dusty scrap of linen that tasted like brimstone and ash, and glared. Something in the sight made him smile. The blood dripping upward to the plaster above them was less now, drops falling up in slow motion, the stain on the leg of his striped slacks no longer spreading.

"You are such a crafty bitch, Lyds. God, I love it!" He practically danced back to the salt circle and knife, then knelt to pick up both the blade and the book. 

"A book of demon bindings Lyds? Real cute, you're close but sans cigar as they say," he spun the knife with one hand as he flipped the book open. "Oh, this one is all about names, I see why you like it! I get that, sure: names are important here, my name's a pretty big deal, I can see the logic. You're on the right track."

She shouted at him through the tie, managing only a muffled yell. He blinked at her with disinterest, then at his bloody leg, then snapped the book closed. It burst into flames, a momentary torch, then the book was gone with just a rain of glowing ash to mark its existence. She was almost upset, considering she'd literally killed for that book.

"So Lyds, you think blood play is fun, do ya?" He was stalking forward, and the knife in his hand was a blur of spinning silver. Her mouth was already dry from the fabric jammed into it. She sneered as best she could.

He was kneeling between her legs then, gently pulling her knees up and over his thighs, fingers tracing her ankles. She regretted wearing just a tank top and shorts today, wanted more cloth to slow him down some. He caressed the tiny tattoo on her skin, one little lilly on the inner bone of her ankle, and smiled up at her.

"I know you hate my no-more-tattoos rule, Lyds," he flicked the bone of her ankle roughly with his nail, making her jump. She tried not to seem disturbed by the change of subject, so she rolled her eyes then looked pointedly up, until he followed her gaze. Both of her tied up hands were flipping him off.

"God you're fuckin sexy," he grinned, momentarily distracted, crowding into her space to run teeth and tongue along her neck, lifting her hips and pulling her forward until he was able to grind against her. She wrapped her legs around him reflexively, felt him shift, the almost painful pressure of her zipper being crushed against her skin. His teeth were hard at her throat, and she was moaning, hating it, rolling her hips against him and then suddenly there was the ice cold trail of the knife dragging up her thigh.

She froze.

"But sexy though you may be, I'm still disappointed," He growled into her hair. She was suddenly aware of a sticky cold patch on her leg, right over his, a smear of transferred blood on her outer thigh. "I'm half human now, that little stab wound could scar. I'm not a big fan of permanent body modifications, but hey, you wanted more tattoos didn't you Lyds?" 

She held very still, focus split between the sharp icy pinpoint of light that was the knife on her skin and the half-pain of his erection pressed against her.

"I remember you really hated it when I forbid them: you argued that it was your body, and do you remember what I said?"

She couldn't speak, but she knew better than to be silent. She nodded.

"I said 'it's my body now, kid,' and then," the point of light trailed up her leg, inward, tracing a slow line in the direction of her clit. One errant shivver would cause so much damage, she tried not to shake, she tried not to cry. "And then I proved my point for all weekend, you remember that? A solid three days, and you stopped crying after the first day. I was pretty impressed by that, not gonna lie. Knew you were somethin' special when you stopped begging after the first hour, and man, was I right."

The knife trailed back to the outside of her thigh, back to the transferred patch of blood running down the length of her outer leg.

"I didn't want anything to mar that beautiful skin, ya know? I didn't want any trace of damage to my precious breather. Bad enough you have that lilly, though I do like to think you got that for me. Been a little in love with death forever, ain't cha?" He rubbed at her ankle tenderly.

There had been a time when he would never have thought ro talk of love at all. He was telling himself a story: Lydia loves death, he is death, Lydia loves him. She breathed evenly through her nose and hoped she was right, hoped he really was in love. She nodded. 

The knife dug into her skin and she tried to jerk away. His grip was like a vice. With a flick the blade ripped through the denim of her shorts and she realized it was scalpel-sharp now, far more dangerous than the dull knife she'd buried in his leg.

"But you don't belong to death, he can't have you. No, you belong to me, remember Princess? Let me remind you, and hey. It's almost like a tattoo-" He probably said more but her muffled screams drowned it out. 

He held her left leg totally immobile at the knee, and used his left hand to carve slow lines in it, starting at her hip. She thrashed and kicked with her right leg but he was like marble, heavy and unshakable. The knife dug through the coating of his blood before slipping into her flesh in some places, and where it did she thought she felt a tingling numbness. She couldn't be sure, the whole thing hurt like hell, worse than her tattoo, worse than anything she'd felt, but somehow she knew it wasn't the worst he could do. 

After a few inches she saw him wiping away her blood and realized it was letters he was carving big looping illuminated-manuscript letters, starting with an oversized and complex 'B' near her hip. She screamed again, wordless against the tie, mostly rage now rather than pain. 

He flicked a long ribbon of her skin away with the tip of the blade: he was carving shallow and wide, the better to scar, she knew that.

"Oh have you seen Lydia, oh Lydia the tattooed lady…" He was singing. He'd been singing this whole time, like he couldn't even hear her.

She thought about trying to be silent, to not give him the satisfaction of her pain, but she discarded the idea. He wanted her to scream, and he'd do whatever it took to make her. Screams actually might help her now. She was still ashamed when she ran out of them, throat raw, and started crying instead. 

He finished the last flourish on the "G" then going back, to fine tune his work she imagined. His right thigh was now soaked with her blood, obscuring his own.

Finally he buried the knife hilt-deep in the floor again and ran a finger up the back of her thigh, just along the tops of the letters. She sniffled and tried to blink through swollen eyelids.

He pulled her flush to his hips, like she hadn't spent the last hour screaming, and licked his way up the column of her throat again. She felt the tug as he ripped what was left of her shorts and dragged them down her good leg. She didn't even know what happened to her underwear, his fingers rough inside her, and she couldn't tell if it hurt. His thumb found her clit, pumping fingers into her, and no, that wasn't pain. Her moan was a half whimper as her damaged leg flexed. 

He didn't give her time to adjust, she was still recovering from the flashes of hurt and pleasure but he had his fly down, pumping his cock in his hand once, twice, then the harsh drag and ache of being too full too soon and she made a guttural noise that she couldn't identify. 

"My Lydia, all mine, only mine," his hands on her hips pulled her against him with each word. "Exorcise me, bury me, die on me: you'll never escape, Lydia."

He tugged up her shirt, bruising her breast in a tight grip, and when she sobbed he came with his face pressed to her neck, muffling a feral growl. 

She heaved breath through her nose as he leaned back, slid out from between her legs, and tugged her blouse back down. 

"Hey now, come on little Lydia, it's okay. You're okay," his voice was so gentle now, wiping tears from her eyes, ghosting fingers along her cheeks, until her breathing was normal. Until her eyes were dry.

He untied her hands then, leaning into her space to reach up, and she inhaled the scent of him, dirt and sweat and come. When her arms dropped they were sore and useless from all of her prior thrashing. She managed to slip them around his neck, making him lean in, and he gently tugged the gag from her mouth. 

"Betel," her throat was raw but she didn't even try to finish his name.

"You good there sweetness?" He smirked down at her, and she was too tired for hate. She rolled her hips against him, then whimpered at the pain in her leg. He lifted her gently, pouring her away from him and into her own bed, carefully rolling her so that her bloody leg was facing upward and not stuck to the sheets. 

"That'll scar up beautifully," he purred, looking over his work upside down as his fingers traced his name carved into her skin. 

"If it doesn't get infected," she shifted, feeling cold come and blood drip and pool against her.

"You're not human enough to get infections anymore, babes."

She didn't reply, staring at the pillow before her.

"You know, if you'd wanted my attention all you had to do was call me."

That made her snort and shift from the waist up to look behind her where he knelt, "You are so self centered, you bastard. I was trying to exorcise you."

"Were you though? Cuz your exorcism sort of sucked. Tickled a bit," He shrugged, then gently nudged her shoulder to roll her away from him and back into a relaxed position. He was gone, then back, and she was swallowing some pills he placed on her tongue with his own fingers and water from a cup he held, then back to prone. She resumed staring at the pillow while he lay down behind her, arm looped over her hip.

"I'll stay the week, make sure your leg heals right," he said.

"We'll last a day then get into a fistfight."

"A sexy fistfight?"

"Aren't they all sexy fistfights to you," she exhaled, not really asking, and tried to ignore the pain in her leg long enough to fall asleep. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, yeah, I did that. Can't even regret it, that was so fucking fun to write.
> 
> Crits/comments/corrections keep me typing!


End file.
